CONTINUOS IMPROVEMENT

Continuous improvement is an ongoing effort to improve products, services or

processes. These efforts can seek incremental improvement over time or
breakthrough improvement all at once.

KAIZEN
Kaizen by definition is small changes for the better. Today, Kaizen events are
known to have the results implemented before the conclusion of the event. This
just-in-time process improvement capability also hinges on all of the participants
buying-in to consensus that the changes are correct and beneficial.
Kaizen (Continuous Improvement) is a strategy where employees at all levels of
a company work together proactively to achieve regular, incremental
improvements to the manufacturing process. In a sense, it combines the
collective talents within a company to create a powerful engine for improvement.
The Kaizen philosophy, defined as a style of continuous business improvement
made in small increments, originated in Japan. The idea focuses on improving
processes and products while using employee creativity to help define the way
procedures and systems can be improved.

Plan: Identify an opportunity and plan for change.

Do: Implement the change on a small scale.
Check: Use data to analyze the results of the change and determine whether it
made a difference.
Act: If the change was successful, implement it on a wider scale and continuously
assess your results. If the change did not work, begin the cycle again.

Less waste inventory is used more efficiently as are employee skills.

People are more satisfied they have a direct impact on the way things are
done.
Improved commitment team members have more of a stake in their job and are
more inclined to commit to doing a good job.
Improved retention satisfied and engaged people are more likely to stay.
Improved competitiveness increases in efficiency tend to contribute to lower
costs and higher quality products.

Improved consumer satisfaction coming from higher quality products with

fewer faults.
Improved problem solving looking at processes from a solutions perspective
allows employees to solve problems continuously.
Improved teams working together to solve problems helps build and strengthen
existing teams.